


Investigation

by Passions



Series: Value Beyond Measure [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 23:23:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1876419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Passions/pseuds/Passions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle decides to at least look into Ruby's extreme gift idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Investigation

Staring at the computer in front of her Belle had to concede that she was at least considering Ruby’s idea. She had come straight home from Granny’s Diner after the meeting her friends had set up and immediately opened her laptop. 

Now the website Ruby had given her was typed in and waiting in the address bar of her web browser, the flickering line at the end mocking her for the twenty minutes she’d spent staring at it without hitting ‘Enter’.

She just couldn’t shake the idea that without visiting the website it was only an idea, some lunacy that Ruby had dreamed in hopes of bringing Belle’s fantasy to life: lovely and enticing, but all the same something she wouldn’t have to deal with in real life. If she went to the webpage, looked at Rhys Gold’s profile on a male escort site, it would become real. Far too real for comfort.

But she had promised Ruby that she would give it a try, that she would look. And, she reasoned with herself, looking couldn’t be all that bad. She already knew what he looked like after all, he came into the library to mumble and scowl at her often enough, she couldn’t imagine what might be on the webpage that would be so enticing she wouldn’t be able to use her better judgement and refuse the offer. 

She hit the button and felt her stomach drop as she waited for the page to load. She wasn’t going to go back now. If she was honest with herself she’d always intended to go through with it, the hesitation stemming from how outside her realm of experience the whole plan was. But the likelihood of her getting a chance with Gold under normal circumstances was low to say the least. And maybe her friends were right, if she had the chance to spend the night with the object of her affection, she should damn well take it.

She refocused herself on the task at hand and found herself surprised by the website. Jefferson clearly had a flair for design. The website was really quite lovely, dark grey with a lighter grey pattern of flowers swirling through it served as the background, a bar at the top presented images of romantic settings (a beach under a sunset fading into a nicely set dinner table fading into a bed covered in rose petals, and on and on the images went), the deep purple writing sat on a much paler background and the mission statement on the home page expressed a beautiful sentiment about loneliness, companionship, and the need to feel wanted.

Steeling herself, Belle clicked on the link labelled ‘Escorts’. She didn’t even need to scroll through the other options because Rhys’ name and picture sat at the very top of the page. She held her breath as her stomach dropped again and clicked on his picture.

She had thought she’d known him, known what he looked like, but seeing him walking around town, well as he looked in his suits, was nothing compared to what he looked like when he was trying to look good.

The first picture had him leaning back against a wall, his cane slightly to his side and the jacket of his suit nowhere in sight, his head bent forward as he looked up at the camera through his hair and grinned devilishly.

Even just that look on his face, that promise of pleasure to come, hers and his, had Belle squirming slightly in her chair.

She scrolled through the rest of the pictures too fast to see them - she had no doubt that Jefferson would have at least tried to get a nude or mostly nude shot and she didn’t think she had the fortitude to find out if he’d succeeded.

She stopped scrolling as she reached the text at the bottom of the page. It listed his name, his age, his height, his occupation and his interests before going on to discuss the services he offered. They all seemed relatively innocuous, but then, as Emma had said, it would have been illegal to outright offer to sell sex. Those questions must be dealt with in a different way then.

Belle sighed and sat back in her chair, resigned to accepting the generous gift her friends had decided to get her.

The numbers that lay beneath the text caught her attention and she scrolled down a bit further to see the prices Jefferson charged for Rhys’ time, barely stopping herself from screaming out loud when she saw them.

She grabbed her phone and dialed Ruby’s number furiously, pacing as she waited for it to go through.

“Two thousand dollars?” she screeched as soon as the other woman picked up the phone. She could hear Ruby sigh on the other end of the call.

"I told you. Jefferson gave us a discount."

"That would have to be an incredibly hefty discount to get this anywhere near okay!"

"Belle it’s your thirtieth birthday. We want you to be happy."

"I can be happy for a lot less than two thousand dollars, Ruby!"

"Two hundred."

"What?"

"Two hundred. That’s how much we’re paying."

"That’s a tenth of the cost!”

"Belle, Jefferson would have agreed to do it for free if it was possible. He loves you too, you know."

"How is he explaining this to Gold?"

Belle could practically hear her friend shrug over the connection. “I don’t know, but it’s all worked out, Belle. We’ve paid, and you’ve got Gold to yourself for a whole night. Now are you going to accept that?”

Belle walked over to drop into an armchair and sighed, leaning her elbows onto her knees. Her friends weren’t going to give up easily on this, and if all parties were satisfied … 

"Fine."

"You’ll take the gift?" Ruby sounded a little surprised, but happily so.

"Yeah, you’ll just keep bothering me until I do, otherwise."

Ruby laughed. “Absolutely! Well, Happy Birthday, then! Love ya!”


End file.
